while sadie was running for student body officer, she and abe talked a lot about how great it would be if abe ran for freshman rep and they were in student government together. 9th grade is part of our high school and they thought that would be such a fun way to spend their one year of high school together. we knew that abe's elections would be coming up, but we didn't know when. sadie called me from school friday afternoon and told she won. as i was hanging up, abe walked through the door, handed me a paper full of election rules, and said his elections start monday. what?! i didn't even have time to take a breath of relief. we were back in business. abe's elections were so different. they could only spend $20 but could basically do whatever they wanted and it was a whole week long.
we didn't waste any time. we knew we needed to print posters within the hour if we were going to get the engineering company to do them for $2. abe started looking for images to print. we sent them over to the company here in town that helped so much with sadie's posters. i called and asked if they could print them quickly. they were sooooo helpful and we picked them up right as they were supposed to be closing at 5:00.
we then moved on to our photo shoot....
i took a few photos, then i had to leave, so sadie took over.
the next few nights, she put everything on hold and helped him.
this was hilarious!!
abe went about the elections much less stressfully than sadie.
his approach was that there were about 20 kids running for two spots, his chances were low, so he just wanted to have as much fun as possible.
we went all out and i made that $20 stretch! he didn't want to pass out candy. he wanted posters- lots, with no theme, just a lot of crazy stuff, and t-shirts (which i used coupons on and we ended up doing for super cheap).
a week is a long time, so we decided to add one new thing a day.
-day one- posters and two t-shirts, one for him and one for his campaign manager, his buddy from his soccer team who is energetic and talkative.
this abe the babe poster was abe's absolute favorite thing from his campaign:)
i personally loved the one of him pogo sticking away from a giant shark.
his school has a whole "check it off" system that they use for doing stuff in classes.
he did a spiff on it and made a few different posters with different things to check off... cooking skills, tenderfoot scouting skills, mathematical skills, kadama skills, athletic ability...
we put bubble wrap down the hall under this poster so the kids could pop them as they walked by. abe said it was a hit (haha #punnet)
-day two- stamp of his name that he made by carving his name into an eraser. cheap and it worked perfectly!
-day three- more t-shirts because everyone loved them, so he made four more designs.
(we were laughing because people were asking if they could buy his t-shirts. what if your budget is $20 but you make $100? can you spend $100? haha! he didn't sell them, but had different people wear them each day.)
this was the logo he put on a few of the shirts. he sent it to me while i was in the general women's meeting in the conference center. i laughed out loud!
in these pics, abe is wearing the one with him riding a pegasus in space and sadie is wearing michael jordan with abe's head.
it was about day three that i got a text from him that said, "i think i have a really good chance of winning!" he was getting a really good response from everyone and he was having a great time, but i think when he realized that he could win, he started to get a little hopeful, more nervous and started to allow himself to want it more.
-day four- sidewalk chalk and flyers around the school.
he had some funny flyers of a black silhouette of him pogo sticking in front of a huge white moon in the dark sky. no words or anything. they were classic. he also hung up his t-shirt logos.
-day five- skit
-day five- skit
i really LOVED watching him perform his skit.
he had big plans and LOTS of super funny lyrics in his mind. he was slightly nervous, even though he wouldn't admit it, and the piano felt way different than our piano--it threw him a little off, and he quickly improvised.
he had big plans and LOTS of super funny lyrics in his mind. he was slightly nervous, even though he wouldn't admit it, and the piano felt way different than our piano--it threw him a little off, and he quickly improvised.
the whole thing just made me happy!
i was so anxious to hear and when he sent me a text that said he lost. my heart dropped for him.
then he sent me, "jk i won!"
i couldn't believe it. they did it.
sadie and abe will both be together in student government next year.
i am so excited for them to work together.
after abe delivered a few pints of ice cream to some girls that lost and told them they did a good job, we came home and had a little ice cream celebration of our own:)
spiritual experience:
it wouldn't be complete to record this whole event without writing about the spiritual strength i received that kept me going. after sadie's week of campaigning and having NO notice for abe's and just having to jam it into an already crazy weekend with dave working, by saturday evening, i was emotionally TIRED and feeling really stressed. it was our stake conference adult session saturday night. i had been gone all afternoon and was rushing to get there. i looked awful, tired, and again alone, leaving my kids, to go to a meeting. i was tempted to stay home. i was late and stood outside the door and said a prayer before i went in. i prayed that i would feel some peace and that Heavenly Father would help my kids. i went in, sat down and just as i sat down the speaker, who was my old relief society president, started talking about miracles. within a few minutes of me sitting there i was hearing all about abe's accident. she retold the time when he was shot in the heart by the nail and how miraculous it was that he made it through. i felt this overwhelming feeling that Heavenly Father is aware of my kids and watching out for them. it was a super strong feeling. prayers don't usually get answered that directly- having the speaker talk directly about your own child and how he was watched over miraculously. i sat there, by myself, in the back row and bawled. a lot.
